Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper - S/T

1LP Vinyl - MM127

A meeting between instruments, not traditions. Most certainly, the dialogue between Ballaké Sissoko’s kora and Derek Gripper’s guitar is a summit between two master musicians who are operating with control and freedom at the highest peaks of their art. There are two bulls in the pen. And it is equally certain that these maestros emerge from quite different and distant musical worlds – Sissoko’s kora tradition and lineage traverse the once powerful empire known as Kaabu: located in Gambia, southern Senegal, and Guinea Bissau. Gripper’s stems from the European classical guitar. But we are not hearing these traditions in dialogue: our protagonists meet on the sonic groundings of the kora, traditionally 21-string instrument of the griots, resonant vessel of the sacred and profane, sound carrier of history and wisdom. The kraal is pitched on Sissoko’s terrain. And through two decades of commitment and study, it is to this terrain that Gripper brings the modern European guitar to meet its cousin

The two men do not share a spoken language, but if it is true that music speaks universally, then they were already involved in profound dialogue long before they met for the series of London concerts which yielded this recording session – a session which matches deep communion with sparkling improvisation, which pushes a living tradition into brand new sonic spaces, and opens a live and direct channel of communication between kora and guitar. In the complex web of themes and variations spun by Sissoko’s twenty-two strings and Gripper’s six, a new African string theory is elaborated.
“Musically we tested each other,” says Sissoko, explaining that the most magical aspect of their
encounters are spontaneity. “We have the mastery of our instruments, the technique and a good ear. Derek is very curious, that’s very important.” “He’s just such a good listener,” says Gripper about Sissoko. “It’s not what he plays, it’s how he plays
it. He’s an amazing interpreter, the prime master of timbre.” 

Condition:

Media: Mint (M)

Sleeve: Mint (M)

Track List: 

A1. Ninkoy
A2. Koortjie
A3. Koyé Yè Ya
B1. Maimoun
B2. Moss On The Mountai
B3. Darak 2:53
B4. Basl 4:51